


Trousers

by girl_called_sun



Category: Blackadder
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-18
Updated: 2014-11-18
Packaged: 2018-02-26 05:00:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2638955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/girl_called_sun/pseuds/girl_called_sun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A cunning plan goes awry - how could it be any other way?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trousers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [machiavellijr](https://archiveofourown.org/users/machiavellijr/gifts).



 

“Blackadder… _Blackadder!_ ” Prince George bellowed from his bedchamber. “Blackadder!"

 

“Sir?” Blackadder appeared smoothly in the doorway, one eyebrow half raised in preparation for sarcasm. “How may I assist you this evening?”

 

“Well, Blackadder, first of all I’m having the damnedest trouble with these fabulous new trousers from Paris.” He lurched into view, with the garment in question on one leg and one arm. Blackadder’s eyebrow hitched up another notch.

 

“Do sit down, Your Highness, and we’ll see what we can do. The fiendish continentals with their outlandish ideas – of course all French men of standing have at least three trouser applying servants on call at all times for situations such as this.”

 

“Why haven’t _I_ got three trouser tweakers? I am a Prince of the realm, and only one butler to attend to all my needs!” George threw an arm dramatically across his eyes.

 

“And Baldrick, Sir. He helps when he can,” Blackadder commented. “Although I think you are wise, Sir, not to request his attentions in the matter of trousers. He has had the same fabric applied to his nether areas since 1808…” Blackadder tailed off as he applied his not inconsiderable intellect to the matter of how the Prince could have got buttons so wrong.

 

“Quite right! In fact, I will get a trouser servant, Blackadder, you should put out an advertisement – By Royal Appointment – that should bring them in – must be strong, lots of heavy lifting, what?” Prince George hooted and clapped Blackadder round the head in delight at his joke.

 

“There, Sir, trousers applied,” Blackadder said, voice as dry as one of Mrs Miggin’s home baked scones, bring your own chisel for the application of jam.

 

“In fact, I could have lovely lady trouser attendants,” George continued. He glanced about, and noticed his butler looking at him with a three quarter raised eyebrow. “Oh, they’re on!” He leapt up, and bounded towards the mirror. “What a fabulous pair of trousers! I am a fabulous figure of a Prince in a fabulous pair of trousers….In fact it would be a bit of a problem with the lovely lady trouser attendants, Blackadder, because once they saw me in garments like _this_ ,” the Prince waggled a hand in the general region of his crotch, “they’d just have to take them off again!” The Prince scowled. “Why haven’t you arranged me lovely lady trouser attendants yet?”

 

“Sir, I fear the etiquette of the age, stifling and inappropriate as it is, would prevent me from hiring staff under the job description of “Lovely Lady Trouser Attendants to the Prince Regent,” Blackadder sighed gently.

 

“Damn it, Blackadder, you’re right as ever. What would I do without you and your enormous brain?”

 

“Suffocate in your own trousers, possibly, Blackadder muttered. “Can I be of further assistance, Your Highness?”

 

“Oh, yes, indeed, Blackadder.” The Prince applied some cologne and fiddled with his hair. “You remember last week when I was a little bit tipsy and those kindly gentlemen brought me back from the card game at The Naughty Hellfire Club?”

 

“The large gentlemen in black with the cudgels? I believe I recollect that event.”

 

“Well, seems I made a little bit of a tit of myself and got myself barred, after a fashion. Bad brandy, can’t trust the French, you know.” Suddenly distracted, he changed topic as suddenly as the French might wave a small white flag and say ‘I surrender. “The waistcoat with the silk or the one with the embroidered bawdy cupids on the front panels?” He brandished two horrific garments.

 

“Silk, sir, because it is the lesser of two evil….I mean, so the eye is drawn to the trousers.”

 

“Of course, Blackadder. Where was I?” George wrestled with the waistcoat buttons, but they hadn’t been made by the fiendish French, so he managed at the third attempt.

 

“What happened under the influence of this inferior brandy?” Blackadder prompted. He was puzzled why the Naughty Hellfire Club might bar George, as he was the source of at least two thirds of their income. Surely the loss of all the other patrons apart from the whores, the card sharps and the aristocratically insane was a small price to pay.

 

“Ah, brandy. Well, seems the management said I can never go back unless I am accompanied by…by….well anyway, I think the gist of it was, some one to clean up the privy and pay the barman. And the chaps with the cards. And Madam Veronica. And His Grace the Duke of Northumberland, now I come to think of it. It was really very bad brandy, Blackadder, and the second bottle was no better than the first.”

 

Ah. Debts and vomit, that might do it. Blackadder passed a hand over his eyes.

 

“I really don’t know what the fuss was about, but if you come along, Blackie, that’ll keep everyone happy and you can deal with the trousers, too. I do recall having trouble with them after the privy, once or twice. Terrible what inferior brandy can do to a chap’s coordination. There! Do I look as lovely as a Greek God?”

 

Debts and vomit and trousers. Blackadder shut his eyes.

 

“You can’t tell if I’m lovely with your eyes shut, Blackadder, even I know that, and I’m as empty between the ears as a man whose barber was confused between the short back and sides and lobotomy options,” the Prince whined.

 

“I am merely dazzled by your trousers and rendered inarticulate with the excitement of accompanying you to the Naughty Hellfire Club, Sir.”

 

“Course you are. You better smarten up, though, and collect some of the old Royal Funds before we go. I don’t know, I call out “snap!” fast as a greased pig that’s just seen the size of the sausages, but I never seem to win at cards and those chaps do like to bet.”

 

“Of course, Sir. I shall make myself presentable and collect the necessary monies. £25, do you think?”

 

“Oh, take £100, Blackadder, I lose track after the first few games and I might see Madam Veronica, too. Saucy wench.”

 

“Sir. Although, Sir, I might take an assistant. Between the money and the cards, I may be hard pressed to attend to other duties.”

 

“Whatever you think, Blackadder, so long as you make sure I only drink the good Brandy.”

 

“I shall return from the kitchens forthwith, Sir.”

 

*

 

Blackadder clattered down the kitchen stairs. “Baldrick!”

 

“Yes, Mister Blackadder? Coo, that’s a big clinking bag you’re holding.”

 

“It’s full of the Prince’s money. And it’s a damn shame I have to use it to pay his debts instead of paying nubile young maidens to feed me grapes.”

 

“I tried to feed you some turnips last week, Sir, and you weren’t so keen on that,” Baldrick said, slightly accusingly.

 

“I assure you, as similar as those situations seem on the surface, there are fundamental differences. In fact, Baldrick, I have come to release you from the kitchen for a night. We are all going to the Naughty Hellfire Club.”

 

“What, really, Sir? I get to mix with the great and the good at play in an atmosphere of debauchery and general misbehaviour? No Baldrick has risen so high!”

 

“And neither will you. Get your bucket – someone has the clear up the Prince’s vomit, and it won’t be me.”

 

*

 

They reached the Naughty Hellfire Club after dinner but before the vomiting and fighting had started. “Ah, it’s good to be back,” George sighed, before leaping off to grab a bottle of brandy, and two young and professionally available ladies before plonking himself and his trousers down at a card table.

 

“So this is it.” Blackadder glanced over the rich, the stupid, and those there to part them from their money. He was appalled; he could think of fifteen more efficient and elegant scams off the top of his head, none of which involved taking his clothes off or marking more than two decks of cards. It would be morally offensive if these people took the Prince’s money. In fact, all money that was not Blackadder’s caused a deep and abiding offence, but these things could be rectified. Baldrick blundered over with his bucket. “It’s very…squishy… in here, Mister B,” he said uncertainly.

 

“Have you not been keeping up with the mopping, Baldrick?” Blackadder demanded. “Never mind, I have to think of a really cunning plan…..”

 

*

 

Blackadder spent the intervening time acquainting himself with the barman, enjoying some of the _really_ good brandy the Prince would never get his greasy mitts on, and watching the woefullyamateur, although currently successful, machinations of the card sharps.

 

“It’s a crime, isn’t it?” said the barman, a suitably well groomed fellow going by the name of Bob. “Those scoundrels taking advantage of our God appointed leader.”

 

Blackadder frowned skeptically. “The Prince is not so much a leader as idiot in sparkly trousers.”

 

“But what trousers!” Bob commented, polishing a glass. “Not many men could wear trousers like that. Mark of a ruler.”

 

“Not many men would dare. Look Bob, you can’t be as naïve as all that, you’ve worked here without being killed for weeks, at least.”

 

“Three months, Sir,” he said chirpily.

 

“So you must have a good idea about what goes on, the regulars, the routine,” Blackadder said curiously.

 

“Oh, yes, Sir, I know it all. See that tall gentleman with the black moustaches?”

 

“The kind that say ‘I am an evil genius, mwahahaha’? Yes, he’s quite conspicuous.”

 

“He’s newly arrived from the Americas, and I hear he has a grand new business idea. A sort of loom that incorporates gold and silver threads into fabric.”

 

“Hmmm,” mused Blackadder. “Sparkly fabric. That would be something the Prince would spend money on. And if I owned it….” A plan so cunning it could talk a nun out of her wimple began to form itself in Blackadder’s mind. “Excuse me, Bob,” he said, as he headed in the direction of his future fortune.

 

*

 

The mustachioed American was perusing some of Madam Veronica’s colleagues when Blackadder appeared at his shoulder.

 

“Good evening, sir,” Blackadder said, “and how are you this fine evening?”

 

“You’re not on the staff… why are you being so friendly?”

 

“Well, it’s come to my attention that you are a businessman whom I may be able to facilitate in his enterprises in this Great Britain….” Blackadder smiled his winning smile.

 

“Ah,” the American looked curiously at Blackadder, and twirled his mustache, “well, I am Jefferson Montgomery the Third, and yes, I do have a winning product. Do you wish to invest?”

 

“I may be able to invest some ideas,” Blackadder took Montgomery’s elbow and gently steered him away from the ladies of negotiable virtue. “To begin with, I know of buyers for your ever so sparkly cloth…”

 

*

 

“Blackadder!” Prince George hollered across the Naughty Hellfire Club. “Blackadder! I need some money!”

 

“Yes, you do,” a rather heavyset gentleman in black stood beside him. “And Your Highness, you need it now, if I may make so bold….” He cracked his knuckles in a distracting fashion.

 

“Your Highness?” Blackadder appeared all of a sudden. “How much?”

 

“£95, he seemed to think poker ran along the same lines as snap…”

 

“Just pay the man, and we can go, Blackadder, I want to do something I can win at. I’m so fed up of losing.” The Prince looked positively glum.

 

As Blackadder counted out the money, he said to the Prince, “If I may make so bold, Sir, I may have encountered something which may cheer you up.” He sent the card sharp on his way and led the Prince towards the door. “I shall tell you about it forthwith. Baldrick! We’re leaving!” And with that, they left the Naughty Hellfire Club in a state of peace. Or, what passed for peace in Regency den of debauchery, drinking and deviation.

 

*

 

“So, Blackadder, you’re saying this gentleman will make me my own trousers? No need to buy them from the fiendish French?” It had taken some creative explaining from both Blackadder and Montgomery, but the Prince finally seemed to have grasped the idea.

 

“Yes, Your Highness,” Montgomery said. “My new loom can produce the highest quality cloth with threads of gold or silver incorporated, just perfect for your trousers.”

 

“Amazing! And no one else will have trousers like them! Just for me!”

 

“Ah, now Sir, I believe you will start a trend,” Blackadder smoothly interjected, “once you wear the trousers, all men will want them, so we…”

 

“I” put in Montgomery.

 

“….shall have to sell a great number of looms.”

 

“But I want them to be _my_ sparkly trousers,” pouted the Prince.

 

“Sir, no one will look half as spectacular as you in the sparkly trousers,” Blackadder said. Montgomery nodded in agreement.

 

“All right, can’t deny everyone the perfect trousers… when can I have them?” the Prince bounced up and down a little on his seat.

 

“Soon, very soon,” Blackadder said. “And now we must away, to begin on the fabric for the trousers…” he and Montgomery left the room.

 

*

 

“How are you getting on, Baldrick?” Blackadder asked as he made his way into the kitchen. Baldrick was sitting behind an enormous, clanking loom, working on an impressively sparkly piece of cloth. Blackadder peered at the fabric. “That American was right, this _is_ very shiny. The rich will be flocking to it like magpies. And you are using the thread I gave you Baldrick?”

 

“Yes, Mister B. The real gold thread is behind the coal scuttle, and I’m using the copper thread you gave me. Did I get it right?” Baldrick looked up hopefully.

 

Blackadder inspected the shiny copper thread. “You know, Baldrick, amazing though the concept is, yes, you have done it correctly. Now, all I have to do I sell the real gold thread, and I can leave this damn kitchen forever!” Blackadder headed off towards the coal scuttle.

 

“I like our kitchen. It’s warm and lovely, especially compared to the midden where I grew up,” Baldrick said.

 

“Where behind the coal scuttle?” Blackadder shouted, slightly muffled.

 

“Right there, Mister Montgomery had no trouble finding it before he left,” Baldrick said.

 

“What?” Blackadder howled. “I thought he went home?” He raced over and grabbed Baldrick from behind his loom.

 

“Urk!” Baldrick gasped for air. “He came down just before you, and I told him about the gold thread all behind the coal scuttle, and he went to check it, and then he said he was going home….”

 

“No!” Blackadder howled, “he wasn’t meant to know about the switch! And now he’s stolen my gold!” he dropped Baldrick.

 

“He was laughing as he left,” Baldrick supplied. He tried to imitate the evil cackle, but ended up descending into a coughing fit. “No more weaving, though, Mister B?”

 

“Oh, no! The Prince will still want his sparkly trousers….” Blackadder rubbed his face with his hands. “Back to the loom, Baldrick.”

 

*

 

Another pair, Sir?” Blackadder asked.

 

“Oh, yes, I think so. Everybody wants a pair, and I do like to give gifts. And can they be even more sparkly?” The Price surveyed his trousers in the mirror.

 

“I don’t know how they could be, but I shall endeavour to make them so,” sighed Blackadder. And with that he headed back down to take his turn on the loom. He was greeted by Baldrick, stuck in the loom again.

 

“Mister Blackadder, Sir, I’m all tangled up again,” he called. And with a huge sigh, Blackadder went to extricate his servant from the clutches of devious cloth.

 


End file.
